ALINE. [With growing exasperation, but keeping very cool.] Indeed?

CROCKSTEAD.  I am aware, for instance, that this is your ninth season—­

ALINE. [Snapping her fan.] You are remarkably well-informed.

CROCKSTEAD.  I have been told that again to-night, three times, by charming young women who vowed that they loved you.  Now, as I have no dearest friends, it is unlikely that you will have heard anything equally definite concerning myself.  I propose to enlighten you.

ALINE. [Satirically.] The story of your life—­how thrilling!

CROCKSTEAD.  I trust you may find it so. [He sits, and pauses for a moment, then begins, very quietly.] Lady Aline, I am a self-made man, as the foolish phrase has it—­a man whose early years were spent in savage and desolate places, where the devil had much to say; a man in whom whatever there once had been of natural kindness was very soon kicked out.  I was poor, and lonely, for thirty-two years:  I have been rich, and lonely, for ten.  My millions have been made honestly enough; but poverty and wretchedness had left their mark on me, and you will find very few men with a good word to say for Harrison Crockstead.  I have no polish, or culture, or tastes.  Art wearies me, literature sends me to sleep—­

ALINE.  When you come to the chapter of your personal deficiencies, Mr. Crockstead, please remember that they are sufficiently evident for me to have already observed them.

CROCKSTEAD. [Without a trace of annoyance.] That is true.  I will pass, then, to more intimate matters.  In a little township in Australia—­a horrible place where there was gold—­I met a woman whom I loved.  She was what is technically known as a bad woman.  She ran away with another man.  I tracked them to Texas, and in a mining camp there I shot the man.  I wanted to take the woman back, but she refused.  That has been my solitary love affair; and I shall never love any woman again as I loved her.  I think that is all that I have to tell you.  And now—­will you marry me, Lady Aline?

ALINE. [Very steadily, facing him.] Not if you were the last man in this world, Mr. Crockstead.

CROCKSTEAD. [With a pleasant smile.] At least that is emphatic.

ALINE.  See, I will give you confidence for confidence.  This is, as you suggest, my ninth season.  Living in an absurd milieu where marriage with a wealthy man is regarded as the one aim in life, I have, during the past few weeks, done all that lay in my power to wring a proposal from you.

CROCKSTEAD.  I appreciate your sincerity.

ALINE.  Perhaps the knowledge that other women were doing the same lent a little zest to the pursuit, which otherwise would have been very dreary; for I confess that your personality did not—­especially appeal to me.

CROCKSTEAD. [Cheerfully.] Thank you very much.

ALINE.  Not at all.  Indeed, this room being the Palace of Truth, I will admit that it was only by thinking hard of your three millions that I have been able to conceal the weariness I have felt in your society.  And now will you marry me, Mr. Crockstead?